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Right, let's talk about conference presentations.

As someone who sits on the board of a conference and has presented 100’s of seminars and scientific talks, I feel I have a foolproof approach that leads to a huge increase in booth traffic after your talk, but you can't just show up and throw up your tech!

You've just dropped ten grand on a booth. Another five for a twenty-minute slot in the lunch symposium. You've got two hundred actual scientists in the room, people who work in your field, who might actually buy your stuff.

And what do most companies do?

Slide 1: "About Us" (founded 2018, offices in three countries, nobody cares)
Slide 2: Product features
Slide 3: More product features
Slide 4-15: Even more features with clip art that looks like it escaped from 2003
Slide 16: "Thank you, visit us at booth 47"

Meanwhile, half the room is checking LinkedIn. The other half's plotting their escape to the coffee stand. And the three people still paying attention are only doing it because they're too polite to leave.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: nobody gives a toss about your product.

Not yet, anyway.

I get it, mate. You paid for this slot. Leadership wants a return on investment. The booth team needs leads. Your competitors are probably up there right now banging on about their features.

So you panic.

You cram everything into twenty minutes. Every product line, every technical capability, every reason why you're better than the competition.

And in doing so, you guarantee that nobody remembers a single bloody thing you said.

Because here's what you're missing: scientists don't come to conferences to be sold to. They come to learn interesting science, to hear about novel approaches, and to see how other researchers cracked problems that are currently doing their heads in.

They want to see themselves in the story.

Here's the shift that changes everything:

Your presentation isn't about your tech. It's about what a researcher accomplished using your tech.

The scientist is the hero, and our product is the tool they used on their journey.

Think about it - when someone in your audience hears about a researcher who identified a novel drug target, optimised a tricky assay, or validated a biomarker that made it to the clinic... they're not thinking "nice product."

They're thinking: "That could be me."

That's the moment you've got them.

Because every scientist in that room is wrestling with their own version of that problem. They're stuck on their own research question. They're trying to make their own breakthrough.

Show them someone like them who did it, and suddenly they're paying attention.

Here's the play:

80% fascinating science and the researcher's journey. 20% what you sell.

Not the other way around. Not even 50/50.

80/20.

Lead with a publication. A customer's research story. A proper meaty scientific problem that your audience is wrestling with right now.

Tell it like you're presenting at a lab meeting, not flogging something at a trade show.

And make the researcher the protagonist.

Slide 1: The Upfront Disclaimer

Start honest withsomething like:

"Right, quick disclaimer, we're a company that sells [category]. But I promise this isn't a sales pitch. I'm going to show you how a team at Stanford cracked a really interesting problem, and only at the end will I mention how our tech supported their work. Sound fair?"

This does two things:

Slides 2-3: Introduce the Hero and Frame the Problem

Who's the researcher? What lab are they from? What problem were they trying to solve?

Not "Labs struggle with throughput", that's still vendor-speak.

More like:

"Dr. Sarah’s team at Stanford was wrestling with a question that's stumped the field for years: why do CAR-T therapies work brilliantly in blood cancers but keep failing in solid tumours?"

You're not setting up your product, you're setting up someone your audience can relate to, facing a problem they recognise.

Slides 4-12: Walk Through the Researcher's Journey

This is where you spend the bulk of your time.

Show what the team tried. The experimental design they came up with. The data they generated, the actual figures from the publication or case study.

Include the messy bits. The approaches that didn't work. The moment they had to rethink everything.

"They tried the standard approach first. Didn't work. Then they tested X. Still nothing. That's when they realised they needed to screen two thousand combinations to find the answer..."

This is what scientists live for. Watching someone else navigate the same chaos they deal with every day.

The failed experiments. The pivots. The breakthrough moment.

Make the audience feel what the researcher felt.

Present the data as if you're genuinely excited about what the researcher discovered.

Because you should be.

Slides 13-14: The Impact and the Win

What did the researcher achieve? What changed because of their work? What problem got solved?

This is where you celebrate the hero.

"Sarah’s team identified three novel combinations that showed efficacy in solid tumours. Two are now in preclinical development. The third is heading to Phase I trials next year."

That's the story your audience came for. That's the moment they think: "Bloody hell, that's brilliant. I wonder if I could apply that approach to my work..."

Slides 15-17: Now Talk About Your Tech (Finally)

Only now, after you've earned their attention, after you've made them care about the science and the researcher, do you reveal your hand.

"To screen those two thousand compound combinations, Sarah's team needed [specific capability]. That's where our platform came in. Here's what it enabled them to do..."

Show your technical capabilities in the context of the hero's journey. Highlight the specific features that made the science possible.

But keep it tight. Three slides maximum.

You're not the hero here. You're Q giving James Bond the gadgets. The scientist did the actual work.

Slide 18: Where to Find You

Booth number. Website. A QR code, if you must.

That's it. Don't mess it up now by adding "and we also do these seventeen other things..."

I know what you're thinking: "But we only have twenty minutes. If we don't mention our full product suite, how will they know everything we can do for them?"

Here's the thing, mate, they won't remember your full product suite anyway.

Doesn't matter how many times you mention it. Doesn't matter how many bullet points you use. If you bore them, they'll forget you before they've finished their conference lunch.

But if you leave them with a feeling of excitement, anticipation, or a desire to know more, they will remember and even seek you out to learn more!

And when they've got budget to spend six months from now? When they're looking for solutions to their own research problem? When a colleague asks for a recommendation?

They'll remember the story. They'll remember the researcher. And they'll remember that your tech helped make it possible.

The best booth conversations at any conference, I've seen this dozens of times, always start the same way:

"That Stanford work you showed was fascinating. I'm trying to do something similar with [their problem]. Can you tell me more about how your platform could help?"

See what just happened there?

They're not asking about your product features. They're asking how you can help them become the hero of their own story.

You don't need to chase them; they come to you.

This approach isn't just for sexy fields like gene therapy or CRISPR.

It works across the board:

The specific tech doesn't matter. The principle's the same:

Show them how to win, and they will remember your company, and we all know that 80% of purchases are made with the first company you think of!

What not to do (because people still mess this up)

Don't hide your affiliation. That upfront disclaimer matters. If you try to sneak in the fact that you're a vendor halfway through, it feels manipulative, and you lose all credibility.

Don't make up science to fit your narrative. If you're pulling from a publication, represent it accurately. If it's a customer story, get their approval. Scientists will spot bullshit from three poster halls away.

Don't steal credit from the researcher. The transition from science to tech needs to position your product as the enabler, not the star. "Here's what Sarah's team accomplished, here's how they did it, here's what made it possible." Not "Here's what our product can do."

Don't fumble the Q&A. If someone asks a detailed technical question about your platform, answer it properly. But if they want to dig deeper into the research, lean into that. It's still building credibility. And it shows you care about the science, not just the sale.

Your twenty-minute conference slot isn't a sales opportunity.

It's a chance to show that you understand their world. That you celebrate their wins. That you're genuinely interested in helping them do remarkable science, not just shifting units.

Do that, and the ROI takes care of itself.

Next time you're building a deck for ELRIG, Oxford Global, or wherever you've booked a slot, ask yourself this:

"If I was sat in the audience with a hangover and a mediocre coffee, would I find this researcher's story inspiring? Would I want to be them?"

If the answer's no, bin it.

Find a better hero.

Tell their story.

Make your audience believe they could be next.

The rest will follow.

P.S. - If you're presenting at a conference in the next few months and want a second pair of eyes on your approach, I'm happy to take a look. Just don't send me forty slides about your company history and expect me to be polite about it.

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